The Sheriff and the Wild West
Wretchard: "But if so, it ought not to totally neglect the process of public salesmanship. Sometimes the US military resembles one of those companies with a good production division but really lousy marketing arm."
This has occurred to me, too. It seems almost unbelievable that we would sit on information that could facilitate our long-term goal of Syrian and Iranian regime change. Especially when you expose information like this almost every day: massive movements and offensives that extend hundreds of miles along the Euphrates, the astronomical casualties of the enemy, the nature and the origin of insurgent supplies and reinforcements, the governments that are fighting us, etc.
As a previous poster said, the war would have a very different flavor if the military and the Administration framed the debate the way Belmont Club has done, which is, really, nothing but the truth. When you read the statements of Rumsfeld and Meyers, you see that they grasp and understand the problem. In fact, almost every day these gentleman complain about the public's sources of information, yet they do nothing to supplement or improve them.
We are left to speculate whether it is all due to incompetence, which surely is a possibility, or whether these omissions are due to the restraints that adhere to some otherwise unknown overarching plan. I cannot believe that Bush is satisfied and mollified by taking down Saddam. There must be another step coming, right?
Syria, as I said, seems inevitable, the question is how and when. I think Bush was surprised by the international pushback over OIF, which he believed in his soul to be obviously, and urgently, necessary. I think he learned some lessons that he may never admit, but which are nonetheless constraining his strategy, and I think in the next campaign you will see the entirety of American might, with a profound focus on the diplomatic.
I have been waiting for a sign of forward momentum, and today I saw it. I have asked myself, "Why Bolton?" Why did Bush think that Bolton was so necessary that he would expend his scarce political capital to see him in the UN? My conclusion: the UN is Bush's chosen vehicle for global change, and Bolton is the guy that Bush believes can force through the necessary resolutions.
It comes down to cover, to the international legitimacy that so eluded the Iraq war. It comes down to the diplomatic nod that Bush discovered means so much more than it seems to, or should. We've always known we had the sheriff. Bush is looking for, and will probably get, his warrant.
This has occurred to me, too. It seems almost unbelievable that we would sit on information that could facilitate our long-term goal of Syrian and Iranian regime change. Especially when you expose information like this almost every day: massive movements and offensives that extend hundreds of miles along the Euphrates, the astronomical casualties of the enemy, the nature and the origin of insurgent supplies and reinforcements, the governments that are fighting us, etc.
As a previous poster said, the war would have a very different flavor if the military and the Administration framed the debate the way Belmont Club has done, which is, really, nothing but the truth. When you read the statements of Rumsfeld and Meyers, you see that they grasp and understand the problem. In fact, almost every day these gentleman complain about the public's sources of information, yet they do nothing to supplement or improve them.
We are left to speculate whether it is all due to incompetence, which surely is a possibility, or whether these omissions are due to the restraints that adhere to some otherwise unknown overarching plan. I cannot believe that Bush is satisfied and mollified by taking down Saddam. There must be another step coming, right?
Syria, as I said, seems inevitable, the question is how and when. I think Bush was surprised by the international pushback over OIF, which he believed in his soul to be obviously, and urgently, necessary. I think he learned some lessons that he may never admit, but which are nonetheless constraining his strategy, and I think in the next campaign you will see the entirety of American might, with a profound focus on the diplomatic.
I have been waiting for a sign of forward momentum, and today I saw it. I have asked myself, "Why Bolton?" Why did Bush think that Bolton was so necessary that he would expend his scarce political capital to see him in the UN? My conclusion: the UN is Bush's chosen vehicle for global change, and Bolton is the guy that Bush believes can force through the necessary resolutions.
It comes down to cover, to the international legitimacy that so eluded the Iraq war. It comes down to the diplomatic nod that Bush discovered means so much more than it seems to, or should. We've always known we had the sheriff. Bush is looking for, and will probably get, his warrant.
posted by John Aristides at 6:06 PM
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